INVITATION

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney is delighted to present, Narcissus, Angela Tiatia’s first major solo exhibition in Australia. Comprising a new high definition video and photographic stills, Narcissus is a contemporary reimagining of the classical Greek myth, exploring contemporary visual culture’s worship of the self. Filmed in super slow-motion at an indoor swimming pool using a crane mounted camera, the film arcs from contemplation to catastrophe, opening on a close-up of Narcissus as he gazes longingly at his image reflected in a pool of deep black water. Referencing myriad sources from the classical to the contemporary, including historical literature and images from the internet, Narcissus takes as its starting point, the painting of the same name by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, now in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Anticam, Rome. Tiatia filmed the work with Director of Photography Benjamin Shirley, production company Finch Company and producer Cath Anderson, working with 80 professional actors, performance artists and crew, the largest production of her career.

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Angela Tiatia is of Samoan and Australian heritage. Her practice explores contemporary culture, drawing attention to its relationship to representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of the body and place, often through the lenses of history and popular culture.

INVITATION

"Everything is waiting. Waiting to be perceived, acknowledged, recognised or remembered. Drawn into some vortex of consumption to be captured, photographed, printed, uploaded and downloaded. Our experience of the world is deeply rooted in a global obsession with reproduced and digital images. My only self-imposed stipulation for this exhibition was that the paintings be based on places or objects that I had personally encountered. Everyday houses, parks, petrol stations and flower arrangements being the most relevant, convenient and relatable subject matter. These works are a conversation between remembering and experiencing. The subject matter is consumed, manipulated and reconstructed. The works are less an authentic likeness and more the product of a creative process borne out of experiencing the world through a 2D lens. A working method performed to mimic more mechanical modes of image reproduction, with the end result being a flattened, smooth and featureless surface. While retaining a sense of the familiar, the final image acquires a feeling of artifice and theatricality, conforming itself to the language of consumerist ideology. These paintings are built up gradually as individually masked and stencilled shapes of flat colour. The image gradually reveals itself as something recognisable and familiar. The lack of gesture in the surface of the paintings, doesn’t conceal the evidence of hand crafting. The works are painted on board, resulting in a smoother and flatter surface than painting on canvas. The lines are sharper, the colour more luminous. The surface is ever so slightly illumined. The colour choices add to the sense of artifice and theatricality of the works. These paintings are an enhanced and choreographed view of the world which aim to acknowledge the illusionistic nature of painting and legitimise different ways of seeing."

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Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to participate in Art Basel Hong Kong 2019 with a presentation of works by artists with diverse practices in both two and three dimensions, including Tony Albert (Booth EN12 Encounters Section), Sydney Ball, Lindy Lee, Sam Leach, I Nyoman Masriadi, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Alex Seton and Yang Yongliang.

The presentation includes some of the region's most exciting artists including a large-format painting by Indonesian-based I Nyoman Masriadi (b.1973, Gianyar, Bali). Masriadi’s practice combines superhuman figures with Indonesian cultural history, offering a biting social commentary on contemporary life and global pop culture. Created especially for ABHK 2019, Sri Lankan-born, Sydney-based artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (b.1988, Colombo, Sri-Lanka) will show, Bi-Head, a polychrome and polished-bronze head, exploring the politics of sex, the monument, and pointing to the new possibilities to be found in gender fluid realms. Alex Seton (b.1977, Sydney, Australia) will present a pair of large-scale bronze and marble totems from his ‘Cargo’ series, a new body of work in which the artist depicts highly compressed bales of clothing, of the kind found in the second-hand clothes industry. Seton’s bronze and marble obelisks evoke the mesh of needs, concerns, environments and economies through which we are all connected. This sense of connectivity is also present inthe work of Lindy Lee (b.1954, Brisbane,Australia) in which she invokes a sense of deep time. Lee will present, Unnameable 2017, a large-scale bronze‘Fire Stone’, and works on paper pierced and singed by flame. As each scorched mark stands for an individual moment, so too, the large bronze Fire Stone – borne of the marriage of metal and spontaneous eruptions – speaks to the infinite curve of time inherent to all life.Time, in an evolutionary sense, is also examined in Sam Leach’s finely executed oil paintings of animals and spacesuits. Leach (b. 1973 Adelaide, Australia) draws a connection between the legacy of the enlightenment found in the philosophy of Russian Cosmists and the distinctive styles of spacesuits, helmets and associated technology. Leach connects the constructed landscapes of the 17th and 18th century, the utopian ideals of 20th century formalist abstraction and the future implied by space exploration. Yang Yongliang (b.1980, Shanghai, China) will present video and photographic works exploiting a connection between traditional Chinese painting and the contemporary, implementing ancient oriental aesthetics and literati beliefs with modern language and digital techniques. Yongliang’s monochrome landscapes provide a counterpoint to a special presentation of works from the estate of the late Sydney Ball (1933-2017). Arguably Australia’s greatest colourist, Ball’s Infinexseries in automotive enamel on aluminium, comprises rigid geometric forms articulated in fields of contrasting colour – crisply chromatic formal assemblages of individual but related planes of colour which appear as if poised mid-motion.

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For Art Basel Hong Kong Encounters curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Tony Albert will present a monumental sculptural project in the form of an opened 'house' structure supporting two image-texts spelling out the words ‘Native’ and ‘Home’. “Native Home” is a continuation of Albert’s celebrated text-based works in which the artist embellishes black aluminium letters with a collage of objects from his renown collection of 'Aboriginalia'. In part an homage to his predecessor and artistic hero, the artist Gordon Bennet (1955-2014), Albert's “Native Home” offers audiences a new engagement with these objects, which tell a story of the legacies of colonialism and offers us a window onto the history of Australian pop-culture’s representation of Aboriginal people.

Tony Albert’s practice interrogates contemporary legacies of colonialism in ways which prompt audiences to contemplate elemental aspects of the human condition. Mining imagery and source material from across the globe, Albert draws on both personal and collective histories to explore the ways in which optimism might be utilised to overcome adversity. His practice is concerned with identity and the ascribing of social labels; unpacking what it means to judge and be judged in the absence of recognition or understanding.

Albert’s technique and imagery are distinctly contemporary, displacing traditional Australian Aboriginal aesthetics with a kind of urban conceptuality. Appropriating textual references from sources as diverse as popular music, film, fiction, and art history, Albert plays with the tension arising from the visibility, and in-turn, invisibility of Aboriginal People across the news media, literature, and the visual world. Central to this way of working is Albert’s expansive collection of Aboriginalia (a term the artist coined to describe kitschy objects and images that feature naive portrayals of Aboriginality).

In 2019 Albert is included in numerous significant group exhibitions, including the presentation of a monumental installation for Art Basel Hong Kong Encounters; the unveiling of a large-scale sculpture commissioned by Carriageworks for The National 2019: New Australian Art; his invitation by The City of Milan-PAC to exhibit in Australia: A Journey Down Under; and Enlighten Festival, Canberra, which will include I am Visible, an illuminated artwork commissioned by The National Gallery of Australia.

In 2018, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane presented, Visible, Albert’s first major institutional solo exhibition. Visible surveyed Albert’s entire career including all aspects of his practice — from object-based assemblages, to painting, photography, video and installation — providing a powerful response to the misrepresentation of Australia’s First Peoples in popular and collectible imagery.

Albert has exhibited his work at numerous museums and institutions including the Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France; the Singapore Art Museum; the National Museum of China, Beijing; and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel. He was also included in the 10th Biennial of Havana, Cuba, and the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Dark Heart.Albert is well represented in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia; the Australian War Memorial, Canberra; the Art Gallery of New South Wales; the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art—Queensland Art Gallery.

INVITATION

27/02/2019

MUSEUM OF DAYSSullivan+Strumpf | Singapore9 March - 14 April 2019

Opening on Saturday, 9 March 2019, 5 - 7pm

Museum of Days exhibits details of days, notes of observation, thoughtful reflection of everyday objects and the analysis of material forms. This originates from a simple thought that an object can never be the author of its own biography or of another object, in the way that humans are able to author theirs. The exhibition presents the artists’ personal interpretations of objects, as well as their forms recontextualised over space and time. Literally and figuratively, everyday commodities - that we know and even live with - now occupy the space of a gallery and present the stories of others’ days and lives.

OPENING TONIGHT

15/02/2019

REMEMBRANCEThe American Club, Singapore7 January - 31 March 2019

Art Launch on Friday, 15 February 2019, 6.30 - 7.30 pm

Our sense of place influences our memory in myriad ways. We form our identity in relation to the environment in which we live and work — from the country, city, town or landscape we call home, to our rooms in which we eat, sleep or raise families. These places inform our experiences, behaviors and attitudes about other places. The ideas and feelings which we develop through our interactions with the physical spaces we inhabit allow us to construct a sense of belonging, generate meaning, build attachments, and tackle change. The artists presented in this exhibition explore human-environment relations in diverse and inventive ways.

INVITATION

13/02/2019

RICHARD LEWERKokoda: The Adventure of A LifetimeSullivan+Strumpf | Sydney23 February - 16 March 2019

Opening Saturday, 23 February 2019, 3 - 5pm

Richard Lewer’s Kokoda: The Adventure of a Life Time references the war-time propaganda sold to Australian soldiers who embarked for New Guinea during the Second World War with a romanticised image of the deadly situation and extreme conditions they were to face. Informed by his own recent experience of walking the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea, Lewer’s Kokoda: The Adventure of a Lifetime, responds to this history and the Kokoda Track’s enduring legacy.

War has been a reoccurring subject in Lewer’s practice in recent years; embedded as it is in a fascination for tales of hardship, endurance and heroic tragedy. After winning the 2015 Albany Art Prize, Lewer was awarded a one­month residency in Albany Western Australia from where more than 40,000 Australian and New Zealand service men and women departed 100 years ago for World War I. The residency provided the source material for a 2016 exhibition which combined local oral histories and diary entries. Lewer’s experience in Albany coincided with the invitation to make work for Sappers & Shrapnel, an Anzac Centenary Arts and Culture Fund project at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Kokoda: The Adventure of a Lifetime continues Lewer’s rigorous investigation into the legacies of war. The exhibition is structured around the seven days Lewer took to complete the journey, and includes seven portraits of each of the local guides who assisted the artist and his team on the trek; two large seven-meter paintings, one representing a different aspect of the landscape on each day of the journey, the other responding to the history of the war; and a series of thirty-one drawings also responding to the history of the war. The project draws together contemporary and historical accounts of the Kokoda Track in order to understand it’s ongoing relevance.

Working across a broad range of media, video and animation, painting, and drawing Richard Lewer’s work is accessible and familiar, with a critical edge that probes what is beautiful and sinister about our society without necessarily injecting a moralising tone or political message. Less concerned with factual storytelling, Lewer’s work employs tropes of endurance, physicality and failure to explore the way that places can become repositories for the psychic residue of painful or extreme events.

As part of this, Lewer is interested in experimenting with notions of the artist as commentator or interpreter, a concern which in his practice often involves documenting both familiar and unfamiliar places or historical events; a key component of which is exploring the relationship between studio activity and life outside the studio. In this way Lewer is often creatively motivated by his personal response to an active engagement with a subject through both research and partic- ipation. In 2018, this aspect of his practice lead him to undertake the Kokoda Track.

Richard Lewer’s practice has a particular emphasis on engagement and participation, including his involvement with Aboriginal communities in Gumbalimba in the Northern Territory and Parnngurr in the Western Desert; as well as the Fly-In-Fly-Out mining community in Karratha, Western Australia. Participation in endurance-based performances (such as large-scale wall drawings, boxing and wood-chopping) and enaggement with others is also an integral part of his practice.

ANNOUNCEMENT

29/01/2019

SULLIVAN+STRUMPF | SINGAPORE

Sullivan+Strumpf wishes you a happy and prosperous Lunar New Year! We look forward to welcoming you throughout the year to our Sydney and Singapore galleries. In lieu of the festive holidays, our Singapore gallery will be closed from Tuesday, 5 February to Thursday, 7 February 2019. The gallery will reopen on Friday, 8 February 2019 with regular gallery hours.

COMING UP

COMING UP

23/01/2019

RICHARD LEWERKOKODA: THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIMESullivan+Strumpf | Sydney

Opening Saturday, 23 February 2019

Richard Lewer's Kokoda: The Adventure of a Lifetime references the war-time propaganda sold to Australian Soldiers who embarked for New Guinea during the Second World War with a romanticised image of the deadly situation and extreme conditions they were to face. Informed by his own recent experience of walking the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea, the exhibition responds to this history and Kokomo's enduring legacy.

ATTEND

Tony Albert and Richard Lewer are included in Just Not Australian at Artspace Sydney. The exhibition brings together 19 Australian artists across generations and mediums to deal broadly with the origins and implications of contemporary Australian nationhood.

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As part of the 2019 Perth Festival, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is included in Idols at the Fremantle Arts Centre, an exhibition which pairs his work with that of Renee So. Idolatry and mythological archetypes are reimagined in Idols allowing both artists to challenge and overturn old perspectives on gendered power structures and the aesthetics of spiritualities.

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"Darren Sylvester: Carve a Future, Devour Everything, Become Something" is the Melbourne-based contemporary artist's first large-scale solo exhibition in a public institution. Bringing together works spanning the entire twenty years of his career, this exhibition is a timely and unique opportunity to review Sylvester's practice and reveals his continued discussions on desirability, authenticity and mortality, all presented in a high-gloss finish.

Sylvester is a truly multidisciplinary artist who works in staged photography, sculpture, video, installation, performance and music. Everything he creates is the result of a detailed process of planning and research, with handmade sets and props photographed in his studio to resemble high street fashion campaigns and sculptural fabrications that twist subjects ranging from fast food design to an astronaut space suit to the moon itself.

Sylvester's practice is controlled, autodidactic and constantly evolving. It represents a detailed knowledge of and interest in pop culture, pop music, advertising, cinema, fashion, our relationships with each other and perhaps most significantly, our place in the universe.

Hopes and dreams, work conundrums, loss and longing, fear of death - these are subjects that appear time and time again. Aspects of his work appropriate and transform well-known products as 'readymades' as a way of looking at the ways we live with, and are shaped by, branding. NGV audiences will remember the artist's pulsating dancefloor 'For you', 2013, presented as part of the Melbourne Now exhibition, that enabled people to dance within a stylised 'make-up compact' (NGV).

SINGAPORE ART WEEK

As part of Gillman Barracks' Art After Dark celebrations and in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2019, Sullivan+Strumpf is excited to present Exploding Suns, a solo exhibition by acclaimed Chinese-Australian artist Lindy Lee.

This major exhibition of Lee’s recent work marks her first solo show in Singapore, adding to an impressive exhibition history which includes group and solo exhibitions in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Japan, Beijing and Australia. The exhibition evokes a sense of deep time and will include new vast paper scroll works, singed and pierced by fire, large-scale flung bronze sculptures and freestanding bronze ‘Fire Stones’.

Time, in Lee’s work, is not the time of ticking clocks but the vast arc of time, phenomenological and experiential time of which we are all participants. Lee invokes this sense of deep time in bronze and works on paper which are innumerably pierced, singed by flame and soaked with water. As every scorched mark stands for an individual moment, the flung bronze works are also a register of a unique instant of time as in the Buddhist practice of flung ink - the absolute mark. So too, the large bronze Fire Stones, borne of the marriage of metal and spontaneous eruptions, speak to the infinite curve of time inherent to all life. They image the cosmos as the entirety of all things, all that has happened and everything that will happen, time endlessly unfurling. The expression of an individual life may seem ineffable in the light of this incomprehensible vastness, yet in their totality, each of our lives is a sentient unit of ontological time. Brought into existence by these remarkable conditions, Lee’s work reminds us of our position in the hugeness of time and the infinity within it.

SINGAPORE ART WEEK

Join us in celebrating the works of Lindy Lee together with Louis Ho, Curator at the Singapore Art Museum and notable collector Lourdes Samson, discussing key themes and reflecting on a her three-decade practice, The talk is free for all.

SINGAPORE ART WEEK

Kanchana Gupta is included in Reformations: Painting in Post 2000 Singapore Art, a group exhibition curated by Michelle Ho. The exhibition is a survey of artists whose works respond to the medium of paint, and are distinct through their investigation of materiality and methodology in painting.

SINGAPORE ART WEEK

Jeremy Sharma's Spectrum Version 3 (The Monologues), commissioned by ArtScience Museum Singapore, is included in Minimalism: Space. Light. Object.the first Minimalism exhibition in Southeast Asia, featuring the coming together of Asian and Western art.

SINGAPORE ART WEEK

Join Ursula Sullivan, co-director of Sullivan+Strumpf, in a panel discussion with Aaron Seeto, Boon Hui Tan and moderated by John Wong, on the issues of building and accumulating capital, support systems and infrastructures that contributes to the growth of Southeast Asian contemporary art.

SINGAPORE ART WEEK

Telok Ayer Arts Club teams up with the mercurial Singaporean artist Dawn Ng, in an exquisite showcase of performance art and human relationships that brings together 11 pairs of strangers in a bid to find affinity. 11 is a never-seen-before experiential performance piece with four exclusive showings commencing 17 January 2019, in the lead up to a Valentine's Day finale.

Tickets are priced at SGD$48+, each including a stiff drink and suitable for ages 18 and above only. Book tickets by sending an RSVP here.

CHECK OUT

Kanchana Gupta is included in Reformations: Painting in Post 2000 Singapore Art, a group exhibition curated by Michelle Ho. The exhibition is a survey of artists whose works respond to the medium of paint, and are distinct through their investigation of materiality and methodology in painting.